The accents of outsourcing: the meanings of “neutral” in the Indian call centre industry

Abstract

This is an ethnographic study of an agency which handles "accent training" for major call centres in Bangalore, South India. It investigates (1) the requirements of call centres in terms of accent training, (2) agency staff's interpretation of these requirements, and (3) trainees' response to the expectations of the agency and their future employer. Call centres which may have initially demanded accents as close to the L1 variety as possible now formulate their need as one for a "neutral" accent, which in some corporate circles is considered to be a regionless international variety. "Neutral", however, is interpreted quite differently among the staff of the training agency. Older staff with a background in ELT saw their role as one promoting a shift in the direction of "educated Indian English". This group positively evaluated British accents and emphasized the British origins of IE. Younger staff, on the other hand, without this professional background, were more oriented towards American accents. Trainees, too, reflected this diversity of accent attitudes in their self-presentation in mock telephone calls. Some showed an accommodation to callers with American accents, and others not at all.

Personal and impersonal authorial references: A contrastive study of English and Italian Linguistics research articles

“…In this paper I aim to reveal the complex and dynamic process of decision-making behind these "elocutions lessons". [WE2] b. Ora vorrei toccare invece un problema di natura generale: come possiamo decidere con b. In tal senso, seguendo un approccio descrittivo, verificheremo sino a che punto il costrutto in esame abbia compiuto questo percorso di grammaticalizzazione […].…”

Phonetic convergence towards American English by Indian agents in international service encounters

“…He places a value on his ability to adopt accents when required, and has in fact worked as an "accent trainer" (Cowie 2007(Cowie , 2010. His position is: "I can speak American English if I want to".…”

“…These were largely discontinued around 2005, but this meant that Indian CSRs who revealed their location were subject to abuse from customers, which, according to Mirchandani, was frequently driven by protectionism but often took the form of comments on CSRs' language deficiency or unintelligibility (2012:55). CSRs are typically advised to cultivate a "neutral" accent, but this is a construct that can be interpreted rather differently by CSRs, trainers, managers and business leaders in India and abroad (Cowie 2007).…”

“…It is unlikely however, even in conditions of extreme subterfuge, that CSRs could or would appropriate another accent in its entirety. It may be that what are referred to as "call centre accents" in the industry (Cowie 2007(Cowie , 2010 are manifestations of partial success in imitation. But they may also represent linguistic accommodation, which is present to some extent in all interactions, and especially to be expected in service encounters.…”

New perspectives on language and gender: Linguistic prescription and compliance in call centres

“…Studies relying on naturally occurring call centre service interactions are few and far between due to well-documented restrictions on access stemming primarily from commercial sensitivities and data protection acts (Cowie 2007;Cameron 2000;Alarcón & Heyman 2013;Woydack & Rampton 2015;Heller 2007Heller , 2010. Given that 69.8% of an agent's workday is spent in interaction with customers (Dimension Data 2015), a key aspect of call centre work -the linguistic interaction with customers -has therefore been obscured from such accounts.…”